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When a company buys up another and places their name on the new acquisition, you would think they’d focus on excellence in the transition.  But here is what I observed as one fitness company bought another (mine) in Apex, NC.  In fact, my observations would be the same for when my bank was acquired by another.  My point is that when you attach your name to something and are actually trying to improve it and draw more people to it with your apparently bigger and better name, services, and products, pay attention to details.  Ask the “end users” questions about what is important to them.  Don’t assume that because you’ve been successful you automatically will be in whatever you do.

So here are a few of the mistakes I’ve seen made in these recent acquisitions.

1.  A focus on the unimportant to the detriment of the vital.

 The first thing that I noticed when a large nationally known gym took over my lesser known and smaller gym was the new chrome looking clocks.  It’s nice to have clocks around the gym…to know how long you’ve been jawing with others, to measure the time between sets, or just to know when you’ve got to hustle to get to work on time.  But to replace black clocks with chrome clocks is hardly needed, appreciated nor even noticed by most people.  In fact, not one person I asked about the change had even recognized the gleaming chrome.

2.  Over promising and under-delivering.

When you have a “big” reputation, you should take great care to honor it by being attentive to details, especially necessary details.  When the “big” company bought the gym I belong to, I received a few pieces of mail informing me of the acquisition and letting me know that I know belong to the greatest gym going.  But as great as their gyms across the U.S. might be, if you can’t get the important things right, no matter how small, then your new customers quickly lose respect. This means your “big” name matters not a bit to the hundreds of people affected by the acquisition.  Here’s an example.  

After the clocks were changed, they next changed out the paper towel dispensers.  A seemingly simple change didn’t seem to bother us until the dispensers routinely were (are) empty.  Yep, more times than not (and I go five days a week), the dispensers do not have paper towels in them.  Why change the dispenser if you’re not going to fill them?

Someone, not an employee but a gym member, actually gave me a positive spin to my question.  He suggested that with new owners come new service providers and maybe the service providers were lagging behind.  Nope!  Not acceptable!  Even if that were true, you’d think that an employee would run out and get any kind of absorbent material with which the members could dry their hands, etc.

3. Vague and infrequent communication.

Nothing says “we don’t really care about you” like sparse and “gray” communication.  Don’t attach your name to something until you know what is going on and how it is going to “go on.”  Have an actionable plan that spells success rather than pulling the trigger while the bead is still un-targeted.  What this kind of communication, or lack thereof, does is breed gossip, uncertainty, disrespect…huge blows to a reputation.  

A number of my gym buddies left because of the uncertainty.  We heard our membership rates would double.  Others said the contract only allows a 2% increase a year.  I mean people were making things up as they went.  This is what happens with inadequate communication.  Better to be forthright and lose some people because the new rate is going to be too high for their budget, than to lose people because of uncertainty and confusion.

To borrow an old preacher’s adage: “if there is mist in the pulpit, there is fog in the pews.”

4.  An assumption that bigger means better.

We all can think of smaller companies whose products outshine those of their larger competitors.  This is true in just about every sector I can think of.  Yet, why do the big companies always think they have superior products?  Such thinking typically leads to a lax attitude which produces a weaker product.  I think Jim Collins would refer to such an attitude as hubris.  

We’ve heard through the grapevine (which exists to a greater degree because of #3 above) that our gym’s new owners plan to replace our present equipment, which is great stuff, with the equipment they use in the “big and better” gym.  While this appears noble and sounds like an improvement, members from the “big gym” happen to like the equipment of our “little” gym a whole lot more.  In fact, I had several guys tell me they’d come to our gym because they like the equipment better than at the “big and better” (and more expensive!) gym.  

So, as I conclude, let me say that I enjoy my gym.  I have many friends at the gym.  I do not plan to leave the gym.  And, yes, I understand how transitions can be difficult.  

But none of this excuses the apathy in acquistion.